Google Apps Review: A Capable Online Productivity Suite at a Good Price

Google Apps is firmly established as the primary competitor to Microsoft Office–both the desktop software and the Office 365 online productivity suite. Without question, Google Apps offers a very capable collection of tools, but unless your world revolves around Google, it might not be the right productivity suite for you.

Office Apps

In comparison with the competition, Google Apps’ plain menu bars and features seem austere. Users who prefer the old-school text-based menu bar may appreciate the interface, but Google Apps is more limited than rivals in formatting and in functionality. For instance, Google Apps has fewer font choices than Office 365 does, and Microsoft’s online fonts better align to their desktop counterparts.

Google’s spreadsheet app is the most lacking. As with other Web-based suites, the spreadsheet is sufficient for basic needs, but it omits many of the more advanced features that spreadsheet gurus–particularly those used to the features and functionality of Microsoft Excel–require.

Compatibility

Since most businesses rely on Microsoft Office as their primary desktop productivity suite, the value of a rival platform such as Google Apps hinges on how compatible it is with Microsoft Office formatting conventions and file types.

In document fidelity–maintaining formatting consistency from a Microsoft Office program to a cloud-based equivalent and back again (or vice versa)–no current online productivity platform is perfect.

Google has gone to great lengths to improve fidelity with Microsoft Office, but it hasn’t gone far enough. Google Apps can capably open and work with Microsoft Office file formats, but many features– such as tables of contents, footnotes, or inserted images–end up being reformatted in Google terms, and remain that way when you revert to the native Microsoft Office software.

Sharing and Collaboration

Google Apps, like Zoho Docs, provides strong collaboration from within the apps themselves, besting what Microsoft offers in Office 365. Google Apps allows real-time editing with multiple users simultaneously. And you can share Google Apps files outside of the Google Apps account (though only with users who have Google accounts).

It’s a close call between Google and Zoho when it comes to file sharing and online collaboration, but Google wins out with a little more polish than the rival platform offers.

Files and Storage

Google Apps provides 1GB of data storage and allows up to 25GB of space for email, as well as file attachments of up to 25MB. On top of that, Google recently partnered with Box.net to integrate storage. Box.net offers 5GB of data storage for free, so the combination of the two delivers a possible 6GB of space.

In Google Apps you’ll find no way to sync data for offline access, but you can use something like Box.net or Dropbox in lieu of a native option.

Pricing

Although Google offers free versions of its apps, you’ll get more features and capabilities if you pay for the tools. Google Apps for Business costs $5 per user per month, or $50 per user per year (prices as of August 26, 2011). Among Google Apps, Office 365, and Zoho Docs, Google’s package is the best value. The annual pricing of $50 per user per year makes it about a third less per user per year than Office 365, yet it boasts equivalent functionality sufficient for most small and medium organizations.

Conclusion

Google Apps is a cost-effective Web-based productivity suite. It has some issues in working with Microsoft Office file formats, but on basic documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, it delivers. The more Google services you use, and the more Google-centric your activities are, the better Google Apps will serve you. If you need to work with customers or partners who rely on Microsoft Office, however, Office 365 is a better choice overall.

Microsoft Office 365 is the company’s answer to online productivity suites. A replacement for Microsoft’s Business Online Professional Services, Office 365 includes online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook, as well as Lync and SharePoint. Together, these comprehensive and powerful online office tools represent the best overall value you can find today.

Office Apps

If you are familiar with Office 2007 or Office 2010, you’ll feel comfortable working in Office 365. The Web incarnations of the Office apps have stripped-down versions of their respective Ribbons, but the overall feel is the same, and the core features are present.

Office 365 offers a more diverse selection of fonts and formatting styles than either Google Apps or Zoho Docs does. More important, those fonts and styles will align with the ones available in the desktop Office programs. You can open the Web apps within the appropriate desktop program with the click of a button, and the desktop Office suite can save files to the online storage so that you can access them on the go through the Web apps.

The spreadsheet app is the weakest link here. Although the Web-based tools are sufficient for basic needs, they lack many advanced features. Even so, Office 365’s spreadsheet beats rivals in look and feel (especially for users familiar with the Excel 2010 desktop software), as well as in macros and formulas.

Compatibility

When it comes to document fidelity–maintaining formatting consistency from a Microsoft Office program to a cloud-based equivalent and back again (or vice versa)–no online productivity platform is perfect.

As you might expect, though, Office 365 beats out both Google Apps and Zoho Docs in this department. You won’t necessarily be able to add or edit many of the more advanced formatting elements from the desktop Office tools (such as footnotes, headers, or a table of contents), but you can view them, and at least they won’t screw up.

Sharing and Collaboration

Office 365 provides some real-time collaboration capabilities in Excel and OneNote, but not in Word and PowerPoint. Microsoft recently rolled out a coauthoring function for the Word Web App, but it works only when you’re sharing files from the Windows Live SkyDrive file storage service, and when you’re using the Word Web App; it doesn’t work with Office 365.

However, Office 365 handily makes up for the lack of native collaboration within documents by making it easy to set up an online whiteboard session through its Lync Online service. With Lync Online, you can share and collaborate in real time on any item on your desktop. External contacts can join online meetings using the Lync client application, or a Web-based client.

Files and Storage

Among Google Apps, Office 365, and Zoho Docs, Microsoft’s offering stands tall, as this suite provides the most storage space by default. The basic Office 365 plan gives you 2GB of data storage space on SharePoint Online; additional space costs $2.50 per gigabyte per user per month. For email, each user has 25GB, the same as Google Apps, on the entry-level plan–but higher Office 365 plans have unlimited email storage. Office 365 also has the biggest file attachments allowed, at 35MB.

With SharePoint Workspace, you can sync data from Office 365 SharePoint Online for offline access.

Price

Office 365 has a variety of plans for companies of different sizes and needs. The plan comparable to what Google Apps and Zoho Docs each provide is $6 per user per month (price as of August 26, 2011). Office 365 offers slightly more features and capabilities than the other two, so the additional dollar per user per month seems justified. When you start looking at the more advanced–and more expensive–choices from Microsoft, though, it becomes harder to make a direct comparison.

For an extra $15 per month, Office 365 users can also get the license to download the desktop Office 2010 Professional suite. At $21 per user per month, this is a significantly more costly path than the Web-only products. However, it adds functionality lacking in the Office Web Apps, and it allows users to be productive even when no Internet connection is available.

The Office 2010 Professional suite costs $410 at Amazon, so the $252 per year for the bundled online package is a short-term savings; it will cost more in the long run when that $252 becomes $504 over two years. The value of this package depends on how long you plan to use the Office 2010 suite before upgrading, and on how much benefit you will receive from having the added functionality of the desktop suite.

Conclusion

Office 365 is the clear winner among online productivity suites. It isn’t the cheapest, but arguably it provides the best overall value. The core productivity tools in Office 365 have the best compatibility with desktop Microsoft Office software, and the addition of Lync Online and SharePoint Online supplies additional capabilities that are well worth the extra investment.

Overview

Office 365 is a suite of Internet-based services that are designed to help meet your needs for robust security, 24/7 reliability, and user productivity. This set of documents provides service descriptions for the components of the suite.

Microsoft Exchange Online for Enterprises Service Description – Microsoft® Exchange Online is a hosted messaging solution that delivers the capabilities of Microsoft Exchange Server as a cloud-based service. It gives users rich and familiar access to email, calendar, contacts, and tasks across PCs, the web, and mobile devices.

Microsoft SharePoint Online for Enterprises Service Description – Microsoft SharePoint Online is a Microsoft Office 365 service for businesses of all sizes. Instead of installing and deploying Microsoft SharePoint Server on-premises, any business can now simply subscribe to SharePoint Online to provide their employees with an enterprise grade solution for creating sites to share documents and information with colleagues and customers.

Microsoft Lync Online for Enterprises Service Description – Microsoft® Lync™ Online is a next-generation cloud communications service that connects people in new ways, anytime, from virtually anywhere. Lync Online provides intuitive communications capabilities across presence, instant messaging, audio/video calling and a rich online meeting experience including PC-audio, video and web conferencing. Transform your interactions with colleagues, customers and partners from today’s hit-and-miss communication to a more collaborative, engaging, and effective experience.

Microsoft Office Professional Plus Service Description – With Office Professional Plus, users get the latest version of the Microsoft Office applications, seamlessly connected and delivered with cloud services, so they can access their documents, email, and calendars from virtually any device. Office Professional Plus includes the new Office Web Apps—online companions to Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel®, Microsoft PowerPoint®, and Microsoft OneNote®—which let users review and make minor edits to documents directly from a browser.

Microsoft Exchange Online Archiving Service Description – Microsoft Exchange Online Archiving is a cloud-based archiving solution for organizations that have deployed Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 on-premises. Exchange Online Archiving is an enterprise-class service that assists these organizations with their archiving, compliance, regulatory, and e-discovery challenges while simplifying their on-premises infrastructure, thereby saving costs and easing the information technology (IT) burden.

Microsoft Office 365 for Enterprises Support Service Description – Microsoft® Office 365 for enterprises Support Service Description provides information to customers about the technical and nontechnical support included in their subscription fee to Microsoft Office 365 for enterprises.

Microsoft Online Services Migration Service Description – The purpose of this service description is to provide information about the email migration services that are available from Microsoft Premier Deployment (MPD) for Office 365.

Microsoft Office 365 Mobility Services Description – The Microsoft Office 365 Mobility Services Description provides customers with information on mobility solutions—access to services from phones and devices—that are available for two online services in this current release namely, Microsoft Exchange Online and Microsoft SharePoint® Online.

Microsoft Office Web Apps Service Description – Microsoft® Office Web Apps is the online companion to Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel®, Microsoft PowerPoint®, and Microsoft OneNote® applications that helps users access documents from almost anywhere. Users can view, share, and work on documents online with other users across personal computers, mobile devices, and the web.

Office 365 Security and Service Continuity Service Description – This service description describes the security, continuity, privacy, and compliance policies and controls for the Office 365 for enterprises service offerings. It is intended to provide Office 365 customers with an overview of how each of the Office 365 services is designed to provide a high degree of security, privacy, continuity, and compliance—service goals that are derived from the Microsoft Risk Management program.

Office 365 Identity Service Description – This document discusses the design, policies, and best practices related to Office 365 identity, including the creation of user accounts, password policy, co-existence, directory synchronization, and single sign-on ( identity federation). Users can gain access to Office 365 by authenticating to their Office 365 user accounts—either through a prompt to provide valid credentials or through a single sign-on process. Once authenticated, users’ identities refer to the user names associated with the Office 365 accounts.